Excavating tooth and adapter

ABSTRACT

An excavating tooth has an adapter, a point and a locking device. The adapter has a forwardly protruding nose, a channel and a body. The body of the adapter is configured to be secured to excavating equipment. The point has a rearwardly opening socket for receiving the adapter nose therein, a forward digging member, and an ear extending from a side wall of the point, the ear having a recess. The locking device has a rigid body and a depressible protrusion. The rigid body is configured for receipt in the channel of the point and the depressible protrusion is configured for receipt in the recess of the adapter. The protrusion resiliently engages the recess for tightening the point to the adapter. The nose of the adapter has a plurality of tongues and the socket of the point has a plurality of grooves for receiving the plurality of tongues.

REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION

This claims priority from Canadian patent application no. 2,367,860, the subject matter of which is incorporated herein by reference.

TECHNICAL FIELD

This invention pertains to an excavator tooth and adapter connection system for use on buckets for mass excavation equipment that are used to move earth and rock material.

BACKGROUND

For years construction and mining establishments have used teeth on mass excavation equipment such as front end loaders, back hoes, rippers and draglines. Initially teeth for mass excavation equipment were made of a single unitary piece. When the one piece tooth became dull or broken, a tremendous amount of time was required to remove the tooth. Replacing a single tooth was very expensive in time and material since 60%-80% of the old tooth was not damaged but was replaced along with the problematic part of the old tooth. If the tooth was not replaced, the tooth continued to get increasingly blunt and unproductive.

Some of the difficulties of the unitary tooth system have been minimized in a two part tooth system where a tooth is comprised of a point and an adapter. Early two piece teeth posed many problems. A shell type structure was prone to breakage. Many two piece teeth were of a design wherein the adapter nose and the point socket were predominantly triangular in shape, which when a digging force was exerted on the end of the tooth, an internal part of the tooth would walk off the mating surface, thereby exerting a shearing force on the locking mechanism. Locking mechanisms such as vertical pins would elongate and shear under these circumstances. The point would then break off or the nose of the adapter would shear at the pinhole.

Tooth breakage would often result in the mating surface of the adapter being destroyed through exposure to material flow. Shearing of the adapter nose resulted in adapter destruction due to breakage. In both cases, the adapter would have to be replaced and would result in significant loss of production. In many operations, such as mining operations, the breakage and loss of the tooth was secondary to the possible cost incurred if the lost tooth was not recovered and resulted in a breakage of more valuable processing equipment.

To reduce problems associated with tooth breakage, a number of two piece arrangements have been devised that include vertically driven locking devices. These devices have often been unsuccessful, struggling with pin shearing problems and resulting loses of the tooth.

Manufacturers have reduced breakage by designing massively oversized nose pieces of the edges and providing significantly larger pins in order to prevent breakage of either the tooth or nose piece. The oversized nose pieces and larger pins have led to ineffective digging. Further, if a larger pin was used on a smaller nose, nose breakage would usually occur. This was undesirable.

There exists a need for a successful mounting system for connecting a point and the nose of an adapter in a two or more piece excavating tooth system.

SUMMARY OF INVENTION

An aspect of the invention provides an excavating tooth comprising having an adapter, a point and a locking device. The adapter has a forwardly protruding nose, a channel and a base. The base of the adapter is configured to be secured to excavating equipment. The point has a rearwardly opening socket for receiving the adapter nose therein, a forward digging member, and an ear extending from a side wall of the point, the ear having a recess. The locking device has a rigid body and a depressible protrusion. The rigid body is configured for receipt in the channel of the point and the depressible protrusion is configured for receipt in the recess of the adapter. The protrusion resiliently engages the recess for tightening the point to the adapter.

An aspect of the invention provides that the nose of the adapter is configured in a general cone shape. The nose of the adapter has a plurality of tongues and the socket of the point has a plurality of grooves for receiving the plurality of tongues.

An aspect of the invention provides that a front portion of the adapter nose has a front stabilizer. A rear portion of the socket comprises a stablizer receiving depression for receiving the front stabilizer.

An aspect of the invention provides that a plurality of tongues on the adapter are configured in a rearwardly spiraling formation about the nose of the adapter.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF DRAWINGS

In drawings that illustrate non-limiting embodiments of the invention:

FIG. 1 is a side perspective view of a tooth system having an adapter, point and locking device in accordance with an embodiment of the invention;

FIG. 2 is a side perspective view of an adapter according to an embodiment of the invention;

FIG. 3 is front end view of the adapter of FIG. 2;

FIGS. 4A, 4B and 4C is are end views of adapters according to embodiments of the invention;

FIG. 5 is a side view of the adapter of FIG. 2;

FIG. 6 is a second side view of the adapter of FIG. 2;

FIG. 7 is third side view of the adapter of FIG. 2;

FIG. 8 is a side view of a nose of the adapter of FIG. 2;

FIG. 9 is an end perspective view of a first point embodiment in accordance with an embodiment of the invention;

FIG. 10 is a side perspective view of a socket of the point of FIG. 9;

FIG. 11 is a side view of the point of FIG. 9;

FIG. 12 is an end perspective view of a second point embodiment in accordance with an embodiment of the invention;

FIG. 13 is a side view of the point of FIG. 12;

FIG. 14 is an end perspective view of a third point embodiment in accordance with an embodiment of the invention;

FIG. 15 is a side view of the point of FIG. 12; and

FIG. 16 is a cross sectional view of a locking device embodiment engaged to an ear of a point embodiment in accordance with FIG. 1.

DESCRIPTION

Throughout the following description, specific details are set forth in order to provide a more thorough understanding of the invention. However, the invention may be practiced without these particulars. In other instances, well known elements have not been shown or described in detail to avoid unnecessarily obscuring the invention. Accordingly, the specification and drawings are to be regarded in an illustrative, rather than a restrictive, sense.

FIG. 1 shows a tooth system 100 having an adapter 105, a point 110 and a locking device 115. The adapter 105 has a body 120 having a channel 125 for receiving the locking device 115. The body 120 of the adapter 105 is to be secured to an excavating machine, such as to the bucket of a front end loader (not shown), by conventional means such as welding. The adapter 105 has a forwardly protruding nose 130 for receipt in the socket 135 of the point 110. The point 110 further has an ear 140 extending from a side wall 145 of the point 110.

The nose of the adapter 105 has according to certain embodiments of the invention as shown in FIGS. 2, 3, and 5-8 is based on a modified rope design. A common rope is a 6/19 arrangement, which means that a core of 6 strands of straight rope is angularly encircled by 19 strands of roper that extend the length of the rope in an angular fashion around the core.

The nose has a conical shaped center core 155 with a plurality of angular tongues 150 around the core. In certain embodiments as shown in FIGS. 2-8, the plurality of angular tongues is three angular tongues 150. At the forward end of the nose of the adapter, a stress (or stabilizer) beam 160 is incorporated. The stress beam 160 receives stress from the tooth when a digging force is applied to the digging end of the tooth (i.e. the point). The stress beam 160 is enhanced by the plurality of the tongues 150. In embodiments having three tongues, at least two of the three tongues significantly share the stress from a digging force and thus enhance the stress beam.

The rope type concept for the nose of the adapter is illustrated in embodiments shown in FIGS. 4A, 4B and 4C. In each embodiment tongues 150 encircle the center core 155. FIGS. 4A and 4B show a generally circular shaped stress beam 162. FIG. 4C shows an embodiment having a stress beam 160 that is non-circular in accordance with the adapter 105 embodiment of FIG. 2. The three tongues 150 together form a general triangular shape when viewed from the forward end as shown with triangle 165. The triangular shaped formation has a narrow topside for penetration and has a doublewide base for bearing surface when the tooth is subjected to stress.

The channel 125 can be located on the body 120 of the adapter 105 near where the point 110 engages with the adapter 105. It is to be understood that the channel 125 can be located on the top, bottom or either side of the 120 of the adapter 105. The location of the channel 125 depends upon the desired location of the locking device 115 when the tooth system is in the locked position.

The tongues 150 and the stress beam 160 of adapter 105 shown in FIGS. 2, 3 and 5-8 are configured in a manner that requires rotation of the adapter 105 or rotation of the point 110 when engaging or disengaging the adapter 105 and point 110. The rotation of the point 110 during engagement insures that once the locking device 115 is in position and force is applied to the point 110, the locking device 115 holds the point 110 firmly in place. The stress beam 160 and the tongues 150 are configured to require the same amount of rotation during engagement of the point 110 with the adapter 105. The combination of the tongues 150, the stress beam 160 and the locking device 115 provide a strong assembly and reduce the shear force on the locking device 115. Further the arrangement of the locking device 115 in relation to the adapter 105 and point 110 results in angular compression when the locking device 115 is engaged, significantly reducing or eliminating pin shear and point 105 loss.

Certain dimensions of the embodiment of the adapter 105 shown in FIGS. 6-8 are described herein with reference to a center line 170 that extends longitudinally through the center of adapter 105. The angles upon which the tongues 150 and the stress beam 160 of adapter 105 are rotated in relation to the center line 170 are shown as angle 175 which is approximately 22.5°. The angle 240 that the outer edge of the center cone 155 forms with the center line is approximately 22°. The angle 245 formed from the inner edge 250 of the channel 125 to the center line 170 is approximately 17.2°. The examples provided will result in an angular rotation of the point 110 by 22.5° about the center line 170 relative to the adapter 105 for engagement or disengagement. It is to be understood that these dimensions and rotations are not meant to limit the claims of the invention but rather are provided by way of example and adapters with differing dimensions and rotation values may also be practiced in accordance with this invention.

The three tongues 150 are sloped at ⅛ of a revolution, or 22.5 degrees. The tongues 150 are tapered and slope from a location starting about half of the distance from the font tip of the nose. The tapered tongues 150 can be formed to extend in a gradual tapered fashion from the front end direction of the nose to the rear end direction. The tongues 150 can also be formed extending from left to right or right to left. In conjunction with the corresponding grooves 225 in the socket of the point, whether the tongues are formed left to right or right to left will result in the engagement connection requiring either a clockwise or counterclockwise rotation.

An adapter 105 according to this invention can be used with a point 110 of various shapes. Point embodiments 200, 205 and 210 are shown in FIGS. 9-15 and are provided as examples. The shape of the point 110 for a given application can be chosen based on a variety of factors, including the type of earth or rock to be excavated.

Points 200, 205 and 210 (collectively point 110) have a recess 215 on the inside surface of the ear 140 for receiving the protrusion 220 of the locking device 115. The recess 215 may optionally be located with a depression 265 on the inside surface of the ear 140. Point 110 has grooves 225 for receiving the tongues 150 of adapter 105.

The manner in which the locking device 115 engages the recess 215 is shown in FIG. 16. Locking device 115 has a rigid outer casing 235 and at least one protrusion 220. Although not shown in the drawings, it is to be understood that additional embodiments of the locking device 115 may include multiple protrusion 220 as described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,469,648 which is incorporated herein by reference. The protrusion 220 may be made of polymer and is elastomeric and/or resilient.

The rigid outer casing 235 of the locking device 115 (or locking pin) can be made of steel construction. The protrusion 220 is located in a cavity in the outer casing 235. The protrusion 220 can be made of a dual polymer. The inner section of the protrusion 220 can be made of a resilient material with air-bubbles such that when the protrusion 220 is driving into the locked position, the bubbles are compressed, creating an outward force. The outer section of the protrusion 220 can be made of a non-resilient polymer to make the outer section of the protrusion 220 rigid for contacting the recess 215 of the point 110.

When the locking device 115 is driven into a position in which the protrusion 220 engages the recess 215 to engage and lock point 110 with adapter 105, the protrusion 220 is securely held in the correct position in recess 215. Embodiments of the locking device 115 are designed so that when stress is brought to bear on the point 110, the locking device 115 does not become rigid in the adapter 105 but rather moves freely with the point 110. This reduces the shearing or breakage of the protrusion 220 and locking device 115.

As will be apparent to those skilled in the art in the light of the foregoing disclosure, many alterations and modifications are possible in the practice of this invention without departing from the spirit or scope thereof. Accordingly, the scope of the invention is to be construed in accordance with the substance defined by the following claims. 

1. An excavating tooth comprising: an adapter comprising a forwardly protruding nose, a channel and a body, the body configured to be secured to excavating equipment; a point comprising a rearwardly opening socket for receiving the nose therein, a forward digging member, and an ear extending from a side wall of the point, the ear having a recess; a locking device comprising a rigid body and a depressible protrusion, the rigid body configured for receipt in the channel, the depressible protrusion configured for receipt in the recess; whereby the protrusion resiliently engages the recess for tightening the point to the adapter.
 2. An excavating tooth as in claim 1 wherein the nose is configured in a general cone shape.
 3. An excavating tooth as in claim 2 wherein the nose of the adapter comprises a plurality of tongues and the socket of the point comprises a plurality of grooves for receiving the plurality of tongues.
 4. An excavating tooth as in claim 2 wherein a front portion of the nose of the adapter comprises a front stabilizer and a rear portion of the socket comprises a stablizer receiving depression for receiving the front stabilizer.
 5. An excavating tooth as in claim 3 wherein the plurality of tongues are configured in a rearwardly spiraling formation about the nose of the adapter.
 6. An excavating tooth as in claim 4 wherein stablizer gussets are coupled to the front stabilizer, the gussets configured in a rearwardly spiraling formation about the nose of the adapter.
 7. An excavating tooth as in claim 3 wherein the plurality of tongues is three tongues.
 8. An excavating tooth as in claim 1 wherein the channel is located on a body of the adapter. 